Primary Rep Kinaesthetic and Empathy

[James Pearson]

Hi all, just finished Day Two if our first Prac. woot woot.

I had a question from someone whose primary rep is visual but they expected it to be kinaesthetic as they are hugely emotional and empathetic and asked if there’s a relationship between primary rep kinaesthetic and empathy.

I’d love some thoughts on this?

I thought being empathetic was a “decision”.

Thanks James

[James Pearson]

Did anyone have thoughts?

[Charlotte Sutton-Dockreay]

Hi James,

This is really interesting, was the difference between their results big or just minimal. I think about myself and I am very Kinesthetic and also very visual. I remember reading a quote in the transcript about Kinesthetic being triggered by visual or auditory. I now can’t find it, maybe I imagined it!!!

My thoughts are going to v-k synesthesia, where the two become linked. The visual is what stimulates feeling.

In my view on the empathy piece, as the focus is being able to understand someone’s experience/ feelings how you do that could be coming from any rep. For example I see some people visually picking up on how people are feeling or hearing it in their voice etc… then their ability to connect themselves with the feeling would be the kinesthetic coming in. When I run an empathy exercise in trainings I often hear people responding to the person sharing in different ways, just some examples:
“I am getting the sense that….”
“What I am hearing is……”
“I can see how this is affecting you…”

Not so much of an answer but sharing my thoughts and perhaps where my line of questioning to the person would go. I would be seeking out about their connections to visual, how they empathise etc…

[Adriana James]

Erikson said it.
Kinesthetic is a derived representational system that comes of a visual or an auditory.
Meaning primarily we’re visual, then auditory and then Kinesthetic.

Now, wether people are aware of their visual or not …that’s another question. Because either one (v or At) can be out of awareness. That’s why you have people who swear they’re not visual and their primary rep system is Kinesthetic. It is not. They’re simply not aware of their V.

As long as the optic nerve is not damaged from birth and the communication to the brain happens visually, they have V, only they’re not using it consciously. Everybody makes pictures inside their heads. It’s called imagination. ?

[James Pearson]

ahhh yes I recall that from t he audio. Thanks.

[Cherry Farrow]

You are using all systems all the time., In a particular context you will be aware of one system more than another

Most people use the same kind of strategy to do everything, but rather than thinking of yourself as being visually oriented, kinaesthetically oriented, or auditorily oriented, take what you do best as a statement about which system you already have well-developed and refined.

What we know as empathy could just be the kinaesthetic rep system coming in to our conscious awareness. Imagine a line as the threshold of consciousness and representations only become conscious when their intensity rises above that value/line. Your graduate could be running their strategy for empathy, unaware of the rep systems “below the surface” of the conscious threshold. Their strategy could be V-A-Ad-K but K is the only one they notice consciously because of its intensity causing it to rise above the line while the others are operating out of conscious awareness – therefore contributing to their belief that they are primarily kinaesthetic.

Interestingly, in an abstract presented by NLP Comprehensive they state that empathy is “felt/achieved” when our preferred rep systems are matched? The plot thickens LOL.

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